ORGANICALLY PILLARED MICRO-POROUS AND MESOPOROUS MATERIALS

There is currently a great deal of research activity dealing with the synthesis and characterization of inorganic micro- and mesoporous mate rials. This activity not only stems from their possible use as sorbent s, catalysts, molecular sieves, and related applications but also is d ue to fascination for their varied forms and novel structures. A somew hat promising but less thoroughly investigated topic is that of organi cally pillared layered compounds where the pillars are covalently bond ed to the layers. These compounds are the cross-linked metal phosphona tes of the type M-4/z(z+)(O3P-R-PO3), where R is an alkyl or aryl grou p. Because of the great variety of R groups containing different funct ional groups that can be used, these compounds have great potential ut ility. That this has not been realized is mainly due to the inability to control the pore sizes. The chemistry of this group of compounds wi ll be reviewed and the prognosis for the future indicated.